They had not been near enough to the river to hear the plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its motion into the mead.As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the course of the moving light.Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came to the weir alone.
The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water, and the reddleman observed something floating motionless.Being encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
"Take the baby, please, Mrs.Wildeve," he said hastily.
"Run home with her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may be living near.Somebody has fallen into the weir."Thomasin took the child and ran.When she came to the covered car the horse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as if conscious of misfortune.
She saw for the first time whose it was.She nearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step but that the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved her to an amazing self-control.In this agony of suspense she entered the house, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the female domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.
Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the small upper hatches or floats were withdrawn.
He found one of these lying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lantern in his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done.
As soon as he began to be in deep water he flung himself across the hatch; thus supported he was able to keep afloat as long as he chose, holding the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand.Propelled by his feet, he steered round and round the pool, ascending each time by one of the back streams and descending in the middle of the current.
At first he could see nothing.Then amidst the glistening of the whirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman's bonnet floating alone.
His search was now under the left wall, when something came to the surface almost close beside him.It was not, as he had expected, a woman, but a man.The reddleman put the ring of the lantern between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and, holding on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the strongest race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself were carried down the stream.As soon as Venn found his feet dragging over the pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and waded towards the brink.
There, where the water stood at about the height of his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag forth the man.This was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as the reason that the legs of the unfortunate stranger were tightly embraced by the arms of another man, who had hitherto been entirely beneath the surface.
At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him, and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above.They ran to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned persons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass.
Venn turned the light upon their faces.The one who had been uppermost was Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.
"Now we must search the hole again," said Venn.
"A woman is in there somewhere.Get a pole."One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail.
The reddleman and the two others then entered the water together from below as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to where it sloped down to its central depth.Venn was not mistaken in supposing that any person who had sunk for the last time would be washed down to this point, for when they had examined to about halfway across something impeded their thrust.
"Pull it forward," said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till it was close to their feet.
Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet drapery enclosing a woman's cold form, which was all that remained of the desperate Eustacia.
When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief, bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there.The horse and cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was the work of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle.
Venn led on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two men followed, till they reached the inn.
The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to snore on in peace at the back of the house.The insensible forms of Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet, with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as could be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the meantime sent for a doctor.
But there seemed to be not a whiff of life in either of the bodies.Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to Clym's nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two.He sighed.
"Clym's alive!" she exclaimed.
He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to revive her husband by the same means;but Wildeve gave no sign.There was too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever beyond the reach of stimulating perfumes.Their exertions did not relax till the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three were taken upstairs and put into warm beds.
Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went to the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe that had befallen the family in which he took so great an interest.Thomasin surely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of this event.
